St. Louis finishes sixth nationally in TV ratings for last weekend’s local

• The novelty of the Cup Series’ local debut last year was not there — of course, there can be only one debut.

• Despite a lot of patter locally about the Gateway City being an auto-racing hotbed, television viewership figures don’t follow suit. Heading into last weekend’s race at World Wide Technology Raceway, in Madison, St. Louis ranked 37th nationally in ratings for Cup races this season. The market was 36th for the circuit’s biggest race of the year, the Daytona 500. And for the Indianapolis 500, open-wheel racing’s premier event, it was 39th. The figures are from Nielsen, which measures audience sizes.

• Then on Sunday, when the Cup Series ran at the WWTR facility for the second time, what was supposed to be a quick-paced, 300-mile shootout (most races are considerably longer), it turned into a marathon on the clock. There was a long delay because lightning was detected in the area, and the race did not end until nearly sundown. 

But despite all those factors, the local TV rating fell by just 17%. Nielsen said just under 2.4% of the market tuned into the telecast after posting a 2.9 rating last year. Both races were shown on cable’s FS1.

The delay, which led to a lot of filler material on the telecast, undoubtedly led to a loss of some viewers. Nationally the race had a 1.3 rating. Last year it was at 1.5. St. Louis actually improved a tad in the national rankings over 2022. This year the market ranked sixth in the country among the major markets in which viewership is measured electronically. Last time it was eighth.